Key Takeaways
- Geofencing is a tactic that utilizes virtual boundaries — powered by GPS or mobile data — to reach specific audiences and increase your local business’ visibility to high-intent consumers.
- Advanced tactics like layered fences, conquesting, and event-based campaigns help capture high-intent local customers and outmaneuver competitors in U.S. markets.
- When you combine targeted, personalized ad content with location history data, you can create engagement that leads to repeat visits and higher sales.
- Select the best geo-fencing platform to maximize your ROI! Understand who your perfect local audience is, and create compelling offers that speak directly to their local needs and interests.
- Understanding in-fence engagement, tracking foot traffic, and tying efforts to real-world sales are all key to measuring the success of your geofencing campaigns.
- Addressing privacy concerns, ensuring data accuracy, and prioritizing seamless user experiences will help you avoid pitfalls that often accompany geofencing.
Advanced geo-fencing tactics are a powerful way for brands to reach high-intent local audiences. They use these digital fences to serve targeted ads or communications only to users that enter a defined area. In the US, businesses have been utilizing geo-fencing to reach people in proximity to their locations, conference centers, or even a competitor’s establishment.
Utilizing the power of GPS and mobile data, brands can create zones that are even just a few feet wide. This allows you to display targeted promotions or information to those most likely to engage, whether that’s visiting or purchasing in the near future. With the proper execution, geo-fencing can increase foot traffic to stores, measure campaign effectiveness, and create a deeper connection with the community.
The following sections dive into these proven tactics to maximize your use of geo-fencing. Plus, get tricks to stretch your budget and data even further!
Geofencing: What’s the Big Deal?
Geofencing is proving to be one of the most innovative, effective, intelligent marketing tools at a local marketer’s disposal. It utilizes geolocation technology such as GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi or cellular to create a virtual geographic fence around defined locations. For companies in congested urban areas or close communities, this is an absolute revolution.
By establishing these lines, marketers can engage consumers as they pass by, at that instant when they’re most interested. That’s because it allows ads and offers to reach people at the right moment when someone is nearest and most likely to take the desired action. This no-nonsense strategy is a perfect match for companies looking to increase their physical world visibility and connect with the right people.
The Core Idea: Virtual Boundaries
With geofencing, businesses can use GPS or RFID to create virtual boundaries. Think of it like creating a box on a map. When registered users with smartphones walk in or near this box, businesses are able to ping them with alerts, deals, or reminders.
So for instance, a local coffee shop could send a special offer to anyone who happens to be nearby when it’s time for the morning coffee run. These fences aren’t permanent—they can get smaller, bigger or even relocated to suit the needs of the business. For example, retailers can create geofences around their stores.
They can put them out by competitors to intercept consumers shopping for a new locale.
How the Tech Actually Works
The insides of geofencing are based on GPS and mobile technology. Once a phone’s location data intersects with the virtual fence, it activates a message. Perhaps a shoe retailer issues a coupon when a person passes their store.
The more precise the technology, the more effective the campaign—accuracy is crucial for these campaigns to be effective. Unclear signals or inaccurate data can result in lost opportunities, so the tech needs to be on point.
Why Your Local Business Needs It
Here’s how your local business can get a competitive advantage using geofencing. It allows you to attract those high-intent customers who are already in the market for your offer, ready to purchase or sample something new.
When used wisely, it can increase in-store traffic, drive greater revenue, and help make your marketing more personal. This depends on the work involved; even the smallest ice cream shops can dip a toe in and expand from there.
Privacy is a legitimate concern, so transparent policies are key. Implemented correctly, geofencing gives brands the competitive edge in oversaturated markets.
Unlock Advanced Geofencing Tactics
Advanced geofencing is more than just drawing digital borders. It combines data, timing, and new creative to reach the most qualified, ready-to-buy local consumers. With the right strategy in place, it’s relatively easy for businesses to reach the other 92% of smartphone users by leveraging geofencing.
This tactic increases in-store visits, conversions, and brand loyalty! With location-based advertising increasing at a rate of 25% annually, implementing these advanced geofencing tactics will set your brand apart from the competition.
1. Identify High-Intent Local Users
Begin with data analytics to identify users who are close to making the purchase. Identify trends in app activity, brick-and-mortar traffic, and previous transactions. Segment your audience by behaviors—such as coffee drinkers, gym goers, or daily riders—and deliver them the messages they want to receive.
Social media analytics are invaluable. For instance, take a look at what local content receives the most likes or comments, and then tailor your ads accordingly.
2. Layer Fences for Hyper-Targeting
Create multiple geofences in crowded locations. Send an offer to shoppers approaching a mall one way, and shoppers already inside your store the other. Layered fences allow you to deliver fences depending on proximity, increasing engagement by as much as 40%.
Monitor your fences based on click-through rates and adjust your fences accordingly.
3. Outsmart Competitors with Conquesting
Place geofences around competitor stores. Create irresistible promotions that lure their customers to sample your company. Measure how many users you’re getting from these places and adjust your offers accordingly to achieve the highest efficacy.
4. Capitalize on Local Events
Implement geofencing during large events—whether that’s a major sporting event or a county fair. Provide limited-time offers to those around you.
Or, even better, schedule reminders before, during, and after events to ensure that you are staying top-of-mind.
5. Deliver Dynamic, Relevant Ad Content
Create ads that reflect the moment. Real-time weather, traffic or event data can create urgent, relevant immediacy. Experiment with creatives such as banners versus video to find out what your locals are most likely to click on.
6. Use Location History for Retargeting
Monitor elements related to where users have traveled and reengage them. Send personalized deals directly to people who have been there in the past, increasing loyalty and generating repeat business.
Launch Your Advanced Campaign
Whether it’s a geofencing campaign or other advanced tactic, you must begin by truly understanding your local audience. Knowing who your audience is the most important part. By understanding how they commute, shop, and spend their leisure time in their new community, you can set your business apart!
We know that smart implementation begins with good planning. Plan out objectives, choose appropriate technology, and establish clear processes before diving in. The right technology greases the wheels, from tracking and measuring results to optimizing your audience and message in real time.
Pick the Right Geofencing Platform
Platforms are like snowflakes. Some prioritize advanced, built-in analytics, while others strive for ease of setup. Pricing is all over the place, as well. Pay special attention to the usability of the platform—how quickly can your team hit the ground running?
It is compatible with your existing marketing stack. Pick the Right Geofencing Platform to Maximize Impact and Minimize Cost. Whether your goal is increasing in-person store visits, online traffic or overall brand awareness, go for it.
For instance, a local retail brand in LA may want to select a tool that has pretty seamless integration with their POS. Additionally, they could sync it up with their social ads.
Define Your Ideal Local Audience
Develop well-defined customer personas. Do you want to reach harried commuters, college students, or families? Local census data, community input and engagement, and previous purchase data can all help you define your target audience.
Forget just age and income—what are their hobbies, habits, and what’s their daily commute like? Update these profiles regularly by re-evaluating local trends and direct customer response as time goes on.
Craft Irresistible Localized Offers
Local campaigns are most effective when the offers seem individualized. A taco restaurant in Echo Park might promote a lunchtime special on days the Dodgers play at home. Create promos that are sophisticated, not just complicated.
Test enough varied promos to find out what works. Consider using time-limited offers to encourage people to act now—imagine flash sales or event-only discounts.
Test and Optimize Your Campaigns
A/B testing helps find what works best—maybe one ad draws more clicks, another brings in more foot traffic. Monitor analytics regularly.
Take those numbers and adjust your offers, timing, or the size of the fence. So make sure you’re set up to tweak, test and learn as the campaign is live.
Track Geofencing Success: Key Metrics
Measuring geofencing success Clicks aren’t enough to measure success. Establishing specific objectives and selecting appropriate metrics allows businesses to understand where they’re succeeding and where they may require a strategic pivot.
In large cities such as Los Angeles, consumer foot traffic and online behavior change quickly. Understanding what numbers to focus on can be the difference between success and failure! The mark of a successful geofencing campaign is measuring actions taken in the real world, not just the virtual world.
It looks at the larger scope over several days or even weeks. Next, let’s dive into some of the best metrics to track and optimize geofencing.
Go Beyond Clicks: Measure Foot Traffic
Foot traffic is the ultimate indicator that a campaign is succeeding. By connecting location data with ad impressions, businesses can identify those who end up walking into their locations.
For instance, an ad for a coffee shop could immediately detect an increase in morning traffic after running a local geofenced ad. By comparing these trends over time, owners can determine the most effective days and times to run their ads.
This knowledge lets them adapt their plans for better outcomes in the future.
Calculate True Cost Per Visit/Action
It’s not enough to just consider how geofencing can help get people in the door. Cost per visit and cost per action metrics give you a sense of each customer’s value.
Measuring conversion costs against revenue or new registrations helps identify which campaigns are worth the investment. If a campaign’s Downtown LA geofence is cheaper per visit, then it’s wiser to spend more dollars on that geofence.
Maximize your resources by targeting where they’ll have the most impact!
Analyze In-Fence Engagement Rates
How people engage in-fence provides valuable insight. Tracking likes, taps, or page views from people within the geofence measures whether the message resonates.
If engagement is lacking, it’s time to consider reworking the ad creative or adjusting your target area to be more specific.
Link Geofencing to Actual Sales
The ultimate proof, of course, is connecting visits and clicks to actual sales. Tracking sales data against geofencing outreach allows businesses to understand more than just who walks through the door, but who makes a purchase.
This provides a holistic view of what’s working, allowing future campaigns to improve with each iteration.
Geofencing in Your Marketing Mix
Geofencing is quickly becoming an integral component in more and more brands’ local marketing strategies. It’s an advertising tactic that uses precise, real-time location data to target individuals on their mobile devices when they’re located within a predetermined boundary.
Broad geotargeting might target an entire zip code, geofencing narrows down the target to the block, store, or event level. This enables brands to engage potential customers in their vicinity, deliver relevant offers, and capture first-hand information to optimize subsequent campaigns.
Geofencing shines the most when blended with other digital channels – enhancing the effectiveness of each channel in the process.
Amplify Local SEO with Geofencing
Geofencing enhances your on-site local SEO efforts by funneling hyperlocal traffic, leading to increased real-world engagement. Brands can create geofenced landing pages or ads focused on what’s emerging or missing in the community.
For example, a coffee shop in Los Angeles might set up a morning geofence that triggers a coupon when users walk into the geofenced area. This zone could be around a popular transit station.
Pair geofencing with local SEO to measure high-value activity. Track clicks and in-store visits to get your site ranked higher on SERPs! Eventually, you find out what kind of local content resonates and start adjusting your strategy to drive even more foot traffic.
Sync Geofencing with Social Ads
Sync Geofencing with Social Ads Combining your geofencing with social media ads provides a deeper context to your advertisement and increases its reach.
For example, a retailer might set up a geofence around a competitor’s store. Next, they can reach those users with exclusive offers via ads on Facebook or Instagram.
This helps ensure your branding and offers are cohesive across every platform. This helps your social ads stand out, too—because they align with each user’s actual, in-market location and intent.
Combine with Targeted Email Campaigns
Combine with Targeted Email Campaigns Geofencing data can enhance your email marketing efforts. Brands can use it to send timely, location-based emails—like a restaurant sending a lunch coupon when a subscriber walks by.
By tracking your open and click-through rates, you’ll be able to identify which of your offers land. Each campaign teaches you something new about what drives your local audience.
Allocate Your Budget Smartly
The more zones, data, or agency fees you require for your geofencing campaigns, the more expensive it becomes. Focus on areas and tactics that have the highest potential.
Keep an eye on your spending and align it with outcomes. If a campaign brings in high-quality leads or increased foot traffic, do more of what worked. If so, all the better—make changes now, while there’s still time.
Allocating your budget wisely allows you to stay on top of your geofencing efforts.
Overcome Geofencing Hurdles
While geofencing is one of the most effective tactics for targeting high-intent, local customers, it certainly has its challenges. Marketers are frequently challenged by concerns over location data accuracy, an ever-evolving legal landscape of privacy laws, and the need to maintain a seamless user experience.
Overcoming these geofencing hurdles requires a smart blend of ingenuity, technology and a people-first approach.
Navigate Privacy with Transparency
Privacy laws like GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California make it clear: handling location data calls for care. To be compliant, businesses need to consistently obtain user consent before collecting and/or using any location information.
Communicating how and why data will be used in clear, plain language goes a long way in building trust. Simple opt-in forms and dashboards that display what’s being collected can alleviate customer concerns and demonstrate that the privacy of their data is a priority.
Tackle Location Data Inaccuracies
Location data isn’t always what it seems. This is particularly the case in urban canyons or any location where there is poor GPS signal. Routine audits of geofence limits and technology configurations help identify issues before they become a crisis.
These gaps can be filled with a hybrid approach of GPS, Wi-Fi, RFID and cell-based data to ensure coverage even when a signal is lost. While most brands still rely on manual processes, some have adopted machine learning to identify and correct inaccuracies in real time, putting them ahead of the pack.
Embrace New Tech for Precision
Geofencing tech is only getting more sophisticated. High-precision tracking, energy-saving modes, and smart analytics are just some of the features that are becoming standard on today’s tools.
Advertisers who experiment with emerging technology—whether that’s beacons or AI-based targeting—tend to get the best results from their campaigns. Staying ahead of these trends helps brands to deliver better focused, more relevant and timely messages.
Ensure a Smooth User Experience
When done well, a geofencing campaign should come across as effortless on the user’s part. Ads must high-speed load and be relevant to what the user is searching for.
Angering users with excessive notifications or laggy applications will chase users away. Soliciting user feedback and thoroughly testing various setups and layouts can go a long way in identifying potential pain points and ensuring a positive user experience.
Geofencing Wins: Real Examples
Geofencing has changed the game for how local businesses attract new and repeat customers. Because of location data, retailers and service providers are able to deliver messages that seem one-to-one. This allows campaigns to be more relevant and increases in-store visits and sales.
Now, let’s take a look at three real-world examples that illustrate how the right geofencing tactics can succeed, no matter the environment.
Local Diner Boosts Lunch Rush
An independent diner in downtown Los Angeles sought to generate more business during slower lunch hours. They created geofences around local office complexes and transit stops. Targeted lunch specials, for example, could go to smartphones right before lunchtime, tailored to the people already in the vicinity.
The diner experienced a 20% increase in traffic after one month. Onboarding customers who received personalized deals were twice as likely to return. Moreover, first-party data from these campaigns gave the diner the power to tailor their menu and offers.
Boutique Wins Weekend Shoppers
A boutique clothing store used geofencing to reach shoppers at competing stores and local coffee shops every Friday and Saturday. They blitzed consumers with flash sale notifications and personalized loyalty points redemption.
As a result, the campaign was 35% more effective in ROI than previous un-targeted campaigns. Compared to regular location-based ads, 72% of shoppers went to the store on the same day. The boutique therefore saw an increase in app downloads.
They got more than 1.5 million uses during the campaign by connecting geofencing with their online loyalty program!
Auto Dealer Captures Service Leads
An auto dealer in the Los Angeles area installed geofences around competing dealerships and auto parts retailers. They mailed service reminders and oil change coupons within three weeks of consumers’ visits to competitors.
In the end, this strategy resulted in a 1.5x increased conversion rate. Linked to their CRM, the dealer monitored customer behavior and optimized future campaigns. The consistent growth in service appointments was a clear indicator that geofencing offers a powerful way to translate online engagement into in-person sales.
Conclusion
When implemented strategically, advanced geo-fencing tactics can help you reach high-intent local audiences. Imagine that coffee shop on the corner, gym down the street, or large mall in your city! These advanced geo-fencing tactics allow brands to reach the local audiences with the highest purchase intent. Clear perks show up fast: more foot traffic, real leads, and better sales. From LA to Podunk, brands are claiming tangible victories by perfecting their geo-fence and calibration via ongoing A/B testing. For any business operating locally, a lack of geo-fencing tactics could mean losing out on people who are already in the area and intent to purchase. Explore your own local haunts and review your own data regularly. Interested in having your brand appear in all the right places? Begin sharpening your geo-fencing now and stay one step ahead of the competition.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is advanced geofencing?
Advanced geofencing takes this digital, precision targeting to the next level. This allows you to get the right ads or messages in front of high-intent local audiences, driving more engagement and in turn, sales.
How can geofencing capture high-intent local audiences?
Unlike traditional online targeting, geofencing targets users based on their current location in real-time. Target competitor locations or large relevant events. This will help you identify people who are most ready to buy – or act, improving your conversion rates.
What tools do I need for advanced geofencing?
What tools do I need for advanced geofencing? You will need a geofencing platform, precise location data and analytics tools. Fortunately, there are a number of marketing platforms that are now providing geofencing features specifically designed for small businesses in Los Angeles and other U.S. Cities.
How do I measure geofencing campaign success?
Measure success Track metrics such as click-through rates, store visits, conversions, and ROI. Double down on location-based analytics to monitor if and how your local audience is interacting and converting.
What are common hurdles with geofencing?
Hurdles such as privacy issues, inaccurate location data, and high competition. Compliance with U.S. Privacy laws and utilizing reputable platforms mitigate these concerns.
Can geofencing work for small businesses in Los Angeles?
Yes! Small businesses in LA can use geofencing to target locals, drive foot traffic, and compete with larger brands by focusing on neighborhood-level audiences.
How do I integrate geofencing into my current marketing mix?
Integrate geofencing into existing digital campaigns, tie it in with social advertising and employ for special local offers. This increases relevance and ensures that you are meeting customers at the point they are most active and engaged.